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Explorers Foundation ••• home page

Glyphs ••• list of fragments of Freeorder

Investments ••• a table of all investments

freeorder ••• the concept & vision

Threads records indications of conversations and events important to Explorers Foundation, because somehow pertinent to the emergence of freeorder. If something in one of these interests you (beyond following the links provided), please contact us. Everything here has something to do with something our own visible region of freeorder network(s) is actually involved in.

Many of the things found in Threads will be found, in greater detail, collected in Vortices.

Vortices: Threads contain references to vortices, pages that record resources, discussions, and investments, relevant to Explorers Foundation areas of focus and investment.

Vortices, are born, die, evolve, merge, split, flow, and evolve.

A list of current Explorers Foundation Vortices •••

References to vortices: “v” + the name, e.g. vGuardian

freeorder welds together free & order to ensure that never again will the two concepts be thought to be in opposition to one another.

freeorder expresses the idea that orders arising from freedom work best for all of us who wish to use our full powers of imagination, reason, and action in pursuit of happiness and in service to people and things we love.

More extensive description of freeorder •••

* ∮forge is an abbreviation of “integrating freeorder generator,” an institutional form essential to the full emergence of freeorder, in various ways, among all of the world’s cultures, resulting in a “concert of civilizations,” a phrase used by James C. Bennett ••• author of The Anglosphere Challenge.

Definitions of freeorder:

• What’s good for explorers within each of us and among us.

• A balance among designed and spontaneous orders that serves quest, venture, and error correction.

The conjecture implied by the second definition is that Hayek’s insights into kinds of order are useful in thought and productive in action and will remain so as the world of freeorder evolves.

The word quest indicates an aesthetics guided pattern of explorations. The romantic implications of the word are fundamental. The emergence of freeorder, within each of us and among us depends on fierce balances of romantic idealism and ruthless rationality.

How Explorers Foundation can be simultaneously liberal and conservative.

We are liberal (in the original and future meaning) in that we are for the freedom of every individual to imagine, think, act, and collaborate; and we are conservative to the extent that what we seek to conserve is exactly the same freedom. Such conservation of liberty requires saying “no” to some visible good things, and thereby protecting many many essential but invisible good things.

Freeorder Bridge 0.95 ••• version 0.95

Freeorder Bridge: from here to there ••• version 0.95 — a five page article (pdf) about how we will cross a seemingly impossibly wide strait. The metaphor of a suspension bridge is used to begin discussion of a centuries old chain of insights and actions that have enabled and will continue to enable the emergence of freeorder.

Weavers of freeorder

Hayek, on order, and how freeorder connects his “kinds of order” with quest

🔹 The word order is fundamental:

F. A. Hayek, in Volume I, Chapter Two, "Cosmos and Taxis", of Law, Legislation and Liberty (University of Chicago, 1973), suggests this definition of the word "order":

"By 'order' we shall throughout describe a state of affairs in which a multiplicity of elements of various kinds are so related to each other that we may learn from our acquaintance with some spatial or temporal part of the whole to form correct expectations concerning the rest, or at least expectations which have a good chance of proving correct."

Kimura, on Donald Trump

‘This I have said and written many times since late 2016. Those who have not studied Sun Tzu’s The Art of War (孫子兵法) can never fully understand Trump and his way. Richard Feynman said, “What I cannot create, I do not understand.” Trump’s understanding of (military) strategy is on the level of its original creator. That is the reason that Trump has consistently outwitted the Chinese elite in the art of (political and trade) war. All of them studied and are adept at 孫子兵法 and The Thirty-Six Stratagem (三十六計) but Trump has been consistently more creative and innovative in the application of the art.’

Leif Smith: What is to be done? a quiet, fast, revolution [glyph 619]

Imagine a wheel. At the top, collectives — at the bottom, individuals. That wheel must be made to revolve. Why? For all who value exploration, curiosity, imagination, wonder, venture, challenge, integrity. There are many of us. We will turn the wheel. Here's how: We will tell stories of a new world, listen for adventures, share them, invest in the best of them, and from each we will draw power to turn the wheel. We will weave patterns of thought and action inspiring networks that change expectations. We will design for emergence, limit control, manifest strengths, live in freeorder. This is what is to be done.

Jeffrey A. Tucker: “One of the most marvelous books I’ve read this year is Donald Henderson’s personal story of the eradication of smallpox. The book is Smallpox: The Death of a Disease: The Inside Story of Eradicating a Worldwide Killer. It’s a brilliant and thrilling adventure story by a man who worked his entire life to make the world a better place. He was also the author (with others) of a mighty treatise against lockdowns that appears at AIER. He died in 2016, which is tragic because we could have used his wisdom in these crazy times.”

Matt Taibbi: “Year Zero: On America's birthday, celebrating the corporate-sponsored revolution: It’s the Fourth of July, and revolution is in the air. Only in America would it look like this: an elite-sponsored Maoist revolt, couched as a Black liberation movement whose canonical texts are a corporate consultant’s white guilt self-help manual, and a New York Times series rewriting history to explain an election they called wrong.” —the first paragraph of a long article, available to subscribers of Taibbi’s Substack •••

W. S. Churchill: “Civilization will not last, freedom will not survive, peace will not be kept, unless a very large majority of mankind unite together to defend them and show themselves possessed of a constabulary power before which barbaric and atavistic forces will stand in awe.” —https://slife.org/winston-churchill-quotes/ vGuardian

Daniel Hannan ••• 13 June 2020: “Removing the statue of Cecil Rhodes would be cowardly and anti-intellectual. There is no point parading your moral superiority over Rhodes simply because he upheld the values of his age.”

“In 1357, afflicted by plague and military disaster, the people of Siena demolished a statue of Venus. As Tom Holland explains in his wonderful history, Dominion, the Sienese were acting as earlier Christians had done, convinced that, by pulverising pagan carvings, they were exorcising demons. Iconoclasm – the destruction of graven images – has been a feature of many millenarian  movements down the ages. The latest cult to embrace it can be found gathered outside my old Oxford college, Oriel, howling at a little effigy of Cecil Rhodes.” … “

Continues at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/13/removing-statue-cecil-rhodes-would-cowardly-anti-intellectual/ (may require subscription)

“How disbanding police can lead to less crime and less conflict ••• Joe Jarvis, June 14, 2020 for The Daily Bell •••

Deterioration of journalism: “The American Press Is Destroying Itself” ••• Matt Taibbi, former contributing editor for Rolling Stone

How is is now: “It’s been learned in these episodes [recent] we may freely misreport reality, so long as the political goal is righteous.”

How it was then: “The ideal … was that we showed you everything we could see, good and bad, ugly and not, trusting that a better-informed public would make better decisions. This vision of media stressed accuracy, truth, and trust in the reader’s judgment as the routes to positive social change.”

And once upon a time in the Soviet Union, Lenin stated explicitly in a speech published in Pravda in 1920: “We say: morality is what serves to destroy the old exploiting society and to unite all the working people around the proletariat, which is building up a new, communist society.” —from “May Day: The Conspiracy of Silence Around the Romance of Evil” ••• by Michael Strong

The use of Ozone Therapy against Coronavirus: “A Plausible "Penny" Costing Effective Treatment for Corona Virus - Ozone Therapy” ••• by Robert Jay Rowen, MD and Howard Robins, DPM

“Ozone and oxidation therapies as a solution to the emerging crisis in infectious disease management: a review of current knowledge and experience” ••• Robert Jay Rowen,

Private Medical Practice, Santa Rosa, CA. This paper includes an account of Dr. Rowen’s use of Ozone Therapy during the West African Ebola epidemic, upon invitation of Sierra Leone’s president.

Is it possible that this letter may be the equivalent of Emile Zola’s devastating article on the injustice of the persecution of Dreyfus?

Anonymous letter from a Berkeley professor to anonymous colleagues •••

Zola and Dreyfus

‘On January 13, 1898, the most famous front page in the history of journalism appeared in a French paper beneath a one-word headline: “J’accuse!” (I accuse!). In the 4,000-word open letter that ran beneath it, France’s leading novelist, Emile Zola, accused the French government of having orchestrated a travesty of justice four years before, in which an innocent Jewish captain in the French army, Alfred Dreyfus, was convicted of treason and sentenced to solitary confinement for life on Devil's Island – a hellish penal colony off the coast of South America. Zola’s letter exploded with the force of a bomb, causing French society to split in two: …’ —from https://www.shapell.org/manuscript/emile-zola-dreyfus-affair

Free the People is proud to bring you How to Love Your Enemy: A Restorative Justice Story.

‘A city in Colorado tries a different kind of justice system, powerful enough to transform a broken system of mass incarceration in the United States. Instead of locking up non-violent offenders, these advocates focus on the challenging but rewarding process of individual responsibility, forgiveness, and redemption that radically shifts our idea of justice and our part in it.

‘This Free the People original documentary film was the winner of Best Feature and Best Director at Front Range Film Festival and has been selected at numerous other film festivals across the country, now postponed due to COVID-19. Free the People is releasing the full film ahead of schedule to join the conversation happening right now about police violence and racial disparities in our justice system in the United States. "How To Love Your Enemy" is an emotionally compelling story about real people working to make things right, and a tutorial for other communities looking to restore faith in their justice systems and law enforcement.’

Restorative Justice ••• Longmont, Colorado

“Longmont police have found they can impact offenders without charging and arresting them for their crimes. The city’s restorative justice program, run by the Longmont Community Justice Partnership ••• has become known nationally for its unique model and close ties to the city’s law enforcement.” ~thanks to Steve Elliott - from “Threads” June 2019

“Brexit and the Power of Optimism” ••• Daniel Hannan, Cato’s Letter, Winter 2017

“I went to the European Parliament urging the abolition of the place, which is a tough sell.) They used to mock Cato and mimic his voice, and every time he stood up they would groan. But you know what—in the end, they did it [Romans destroyed Carthage]. And it was the same with our referendum about leaving the European Union. You can achieve the most extraordinary things if you have a better song to sing. And that’s really the message that I want to share with you tonight—about how you win as optimists.”

Hannan has a better understanding of freeorder than any politician I’ve encountered. -ls

Government restrictions on speech about healing must stop - a message from the Alliance for Natural Healing: “see you in court” •••

The FDA, FTC, and other agencies are gagging MDs and other practitioners with a slew of warning letters, preventing them from advising their patients and the public on how to stay healthy during the pandemic.

One warning letter was sent to a nutritionist who talked about the results of a recent study showing that the severity of coronavirus patient outcomes was tied to the patient's vitamin D status. The post concluded, "The bottom line? In order to give yourself the best defense against the coronavirus, begin with optimizing your vitamin D status to at least 30 ng/ml starting today." 30 ng/ml is just the minimum safe level of vitamin D on standard tests used by almost all doctors. But this nutritionist could face fines or even jail for sharing this basic information.

We have a simple message for these federal agencies: We’ll see you in court. Will you stand with us and support our petition and our legal efforts?

My wife, Pat, worked in a health food store years ago and witnessed government officials remove all the folic acid from the shelves because the label said it would help prevent birth defects.

BBEdit 13.0 (for MacOS) now allows exploration of “grep” patterns! This just must have something to do with freeorder - I’m working on it :-)

The "Pattern Playground" window provides an interactive interface for experimenting with the behavior of Grep patterns (regular expressions). This makes the process of creating complicated patterns much less trial-and-error, since you can see exactly what will match, and how, before committing to any irreversible actions.’ x.com -notes for BBEdit 13.0

“BBEdit is the leading professional HTML and text editor for macOS. This

award-winning product has been crafted to serve the needs of writers,

Web authors and software developers, and provides an abundance of

features for editing, searching, and manipulation of prose, source code,

and textual data.” •••

“Academia as the World's Leading Social Problem and What to Do About It” ••• by Michael Strong, first published by FLOW and The Free Cities Institute

“For reasoned scholarship in a free society” —National Association of Scholars •••

The 1921 Club ••• (glyph 421) is for anyone who likes the idea that the 19th century rather than the 20th should be the parent of the 21st.

June 2, 2020: Armed citizens of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, defend their town against potential rioters. Good to see this ••• — Nothing like freeorder can exist in a culture dominated by predators. vGuardian

A small object, placed at the right point, can cause a massive river to seek a new channel. The shift can be astonishingly swift.

Jim Shroads said, “hemogoblins”

A bullet point history from the American Business History Center

“This week we present another very brief ‘bullet point biography.’  A classic story of shattered dreams.” — Gary Hoover writes the story ••• of the Van Sweringen brothers, Cleveland, Ohio: Forgotten Empire Builders: Cleveland’s Van Sweringen Brothers

by Gary Hoover, May 29, 2020

 

“At the American Business History Center, we focus our energies on those companies (and their founders and leaders) which became household names or large businesses.  Yet history is littered with smaller ‘bit players’ on the economic stage. Some of them, like the unique, tragic Van Sweringen brothers of Cleveland, left lasting marks on their cities.  While we hesitate to give such interesting people short shrift, we figure it is better than no shrift at all.”

A catalog ••• of Gary Hoover’s stories

Question: How do we build a list of reliable journalists? What are our standards? Tests?

Jason Goodman ••• is an independent journalist, supported by those who listen to him. Should we spend time listening to Jason Goodman?

Goodman interviews ••• (YouTube) Alan Dershowitz: mandatory vaccinations?

Spike Cohen’s philosophy •••

You own yourself. 

Because you own yourself, you own your life and labor.

Because you own your labor, you own the product of your labor. That product is your property.

Because you own yourself, your life, your labor and your property (including money), it is inherently wrong for anyone to take any of these from you.

If someone calls themselves “the government”, that doesn’t suddenly make it right for them to take from you.  Therefore, all government is inherently wrong and should end.

I am running for VP on a message of radical libertarianism; that is, that all interactions between people should be peaceful and voluntary, and that therefore there is no good reason for government to exist.

“Young Heretics is a podcast about truth, beauty, and the stuff that matters. While the academies of higher learning go ever crazier, Ph.D. in classics and Chief Heretic Spencer Klavan puts aside all the identity politics to get at the heart of what makes Western literature, philosophy, and poetry great.” •••

Never underestimate the power of a question. Who will fight for your rights?” ••• by Robert Gore, Straight Line Logic •••

Robert Gore is the author of the novel, The Golden Pinnacle ••• — someone told me, “if you like Ayn Rand, you will like this book.” He was right.

“Meekness is not weakness. How different life is when we seek humility regardless of whether it looks cool or not.” —Scott Ragsdale, an interesting man, with much to contribute to the emergence of freeorder. His entire post •••

“I am not a soft guy — so I share all this seeking wisdom and how it has made all the difference… by simply embracing and growing from negative experiences instead of being a victim, fighting and allowing myself to be consumed by negativity.

“Yes, I know …. it is easier said than done, but regardless of how challenging things get in your life, try not to get pulled down and waste time arguing/fighting/shouting over nothing.”

Scott is a world-class endurance athlete and a co-founder of Naseba ••• Dubai.

1 Earth Nation ••• Welcomes You ~thanks to Jim Shroads

The online Master of Science in Integrated Design, Business and Technology ••• offered by USC Iovine and Young Academy

Dreams, Engineering, Failure: books by Henry Petroski - the role of failure in successful design ••• ~glyph 415

Imagination and architecture

Pada Labs ••• Istanbul ~thanks to Robin Titus

Ocean Builders ••• ~thanks to Mark Frazier

Openworld Village ••• ~thanks to Mark Frazier

Long vision & investment decisions

Long-term vision and investment: Impact 17 ••• ~thanks to Robin Titus

Le Group Pictet, Geneva, Switzerland: a short video ••• on the brevity of life and the importance of thinking about long-term investment in the well-being of community.

Foolish regulation: Airlines are required to continue serving all the points they served on the date the coronavirus stimulus bill passed, regardless of whether they have any passengers ••• by Bob Poole, a founder of Reason Magazine

“We Were Wrong: So Sorry that We Ruined Your Life” ••• an excellent article by Jeffrey A. Tucker on how governments made ignorance the basis to justify commands more destructive than the virus.

COMMENTS on EPA-HQ-OA-2018-0259: SUPPORT FOR supplement to proposed [EPA] rule: “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science” •••

“The Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT ••• or the Committee) is pleased to submit the following comments in strong support of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Proposed Rulemaking titled Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science.

“We believe this rulemaking is vitally important, long overdue, and essential to ensuring that all EPA policies and regulations are based on solid, replicable, peer-reviewed science, data, analyses and models. The proposed transparency rule will help ensure that important studies employed in support of significant EPA regulatory actions will be available for transparent reviews by qualified scientists and other experts, as well as citizens, businesses and other observers. It could and should also enable a much-needed review of past analyses and rulemakings that were based on questionable assumptions, hypotheses, data, computer models, studies and analytical practices – and/or on processes that were not transparent.

“Simply put, ending secretive science is basic common sense. It is an essential step in ensuring that evidence-based science supports policies and regulations that protect public health and welfare, while safeguarding our freedoms and prosperity, and preserving public support for and confidence in government agencies and regulations. Indeed, without transparency at every step in the process, abuses, fraud, and unnecessarily expensive and burdensome regulations are inevitable.” - CFACT’s entire response to the EPA is here:

Chapter 13 of K. Eric Drexler’s Engines of Creation proposes a way to handle disagreements involving complex scientific issues. This chapter was on line without charge but has now disappeared. Information about alternative access would be appreciated.

Collaborative Conservation, farmer/city/town agreements about water

From Sand County Foundation ••• “Recently, our team negotiated a first of its kind agreement in Iowa that allows cities to meet water quality requirements by working with farmers to implement farm conservation practices that reduce fertilizer and manure runoff. By investing in farm conservation practice in the local watershed, cities could also avoid costly upgrades to water treatment plants.” ~thanks to Ed Warner

Coronavirus: a point of view from a remarkably qualified person swimming against the current ••• Deborah Cahill, a long and worthwhile interview on YouTube. ~thanks to Phil Trice

The development of resilience in a population depends on challenge and preparation for good response. Applicable to viruses of all kinds, physical, intellectual, financial. A people without challenge grows weak, dependent on others to “save” them. A path to eventual extinction.

Strong’s Law: “Properly structured free enterprise always results over time in higher quality, lower cost, and more customized products and services.  This principle applies just as forcefully to the entrepreneurial supply of law, governance, community, housing, education, health care, and other environments supportive of happiness, and well being as it does to technology. Our world suffers because we have not allowed entrepreneurial initiative to fully address the most important issues facing humanity.”

Article ••• by Michael Strong: “Radical Social Entrepreneurs: An Introduction to Strong’s Law”

Great news, and an important moment: “Dallas Salon Owner Shelley Luther Freed From Jail by Texas Supreme Court Order” ••• a bit of the world as it could be and ought to be.

Azimuth Project ••• ~thanks to Dan Geisler ••• who has just taken a job with Azimuth to model Coronavirus

“The Azimuth Project is a group effort to study the mathematical sciences for “saving the planet.” Our goal is to make clearly presented topic literature, and to help people work together in study and research efforts. We convene at the Azimuth Forum, which is open to all who are interested in mathematical thinking and its applications to problems that matter. Most recently, for example, there is an ongoing discussion about mathematical epidemiology and its application to the Corona virus pandemic.”

Zinc, chloroquinine, and the virus ••• (YouTube: skip ad and go to 1:40) a video by Roger Seheult, MD that wastes no time making and illustrating the point ~thanks to Frank Shallenberger, Paul LaViolette, and Pierre de Rochemont

Imagination and architecture

Pada Labs ••• Istanbul ~thanks to Robin Titus

Ocean Builders ••• ~thanks to Mark Frazier

Openworld Village ••• ~thanks to Mark Frazier

Long vision & investment decisions

Long-term vision and investment: Impact 17 ••• ~thanks to Robin Titus

Le Group Pictet, Geneva, Switzerland: a short video ••• on the brevity of life and the importance of thinking about long-term investment in the well-being of community.

Foolish regulation: Airlines are required to continue serving all the points they served on the date the coronavirus stimulus bill passed, regardless of whether they have any passengers ••• by Bob Poole, a founder of Reason Magazine

A small object, placed at the right point, can cause a massive river to seek a new channel. The shift can be astonishingly swift.

“If today Alexander Fleming announced his accidental discovery of penicillin, the first sentence of every news report would say “no evidence exists that it is a cure.” This is a mind-set whose instinct is to diminish hope. Fortunately, there’s no evidence that the American people want to live that way.” —Daniel Henninger, last paragraph of an article ••• in WSJ, Apr 29, 2020

Christian Saucier, founder at Cryptotech.guru ••• Startup societies and ULEX legal system ••• (8 minutes on YouTube). ULEX ••• is an open source legal system - https://github.com/proftomwbell/Ulex

“Special Economic Zones Could Jumpstart the U.S. Recovery” ••• Joseph McKinney & Eric Sass, April 29, 2020, “Special economic zones (SEZs)—which have different economic and trade regulations than the host state or county—can stimulate trade and attract new investment. Congress needs to help innovators and entrepreneurs create more of them, now.”

The Unseen and The Seen: “Lives crushed vs. lives saved: America at the tipping point” ••• Paul Prentice, 19 Apr 2020, “The economy is not some machine that can be turned off and on at the whim of politicians and medical experts. The economy is us, we the people …” - published by John Andrews in Backbone America 22 Apr 2020

Frédéric Bastiat, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen (1850) ••• (a foundation stone of the cathedral of freeorder), in French and English, presented by David M. Hart •••

Food for and of Thought

“The study of high cuisine – of the false consciousness of chefs – is a tenuous foundation on which to build a superstructure of philosophy and social history. But it does suggest a different, related inquiry … This is the question of why societies become obsessed by food. Why, and where, does a cuisine-centred culture flourish, in which people write and build theories about food?” —Hangchow Retrouvé: Emma Rothschild writes about the high culture of food ••• London Review of Books ••• 22 May 1980 [article is free of paywall for a short time]

Virus: Article ••• published by AIER ••• by George Gilder •••. Note the links to Briggs assessment of various kinds of statistical work, and consider this: “… slow to see that the problem was impaired hemogloblin in the blood rather than lung damage.”

Aristotle on Personal Excellence ••• ongoing research of Peter Saint-Andre •••

A protest against the current lockdown policies ••• —Guido Hülsmann ••• writing from France

SpaceX (SPACE) is targeting next week for the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket loaded with broadband satellites. The mission will mark SpaceX's seventh for its Starlink ••• constellation, which is aimed at transmitting internet connectivity to remote and underserved users around the world.

Team Rubicon (TR) responding ••• to the Virus

“Disaster relief is centered on the concept of humanity. Right now, during this public health crisis, Team Rubicon has faced an unprecedented demand to provide essential services across the country and are doing everything possible to meet this need safely. Our focus continues to center on providing support for the most critical community lifelines, which include food, water, and shelter. Additionally, TR has launched medical responses near cities where hospitals are strained, and COVID-19 cases are projected to rise.”

“Think again if you believe draconian controls recommended by a few (but far from all) medical experts are saving many lives from COVID-19. Facts reported by mathematician Yitzhak Ben Israel of Tel Aviv University don’t support such beliefs.” ••• Barry Brownstein ••• American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) •••

‘Professor Israel found that no matter how much or little politicians quarantined the population, “coronavirus peaked and subsided in the exact same way.” Whether the country relied on politicians shutting the country down (the US and UK, for example) or private voluntary actions (Sweden), Prof. Israel’s work shows that “all countries experienced seemingly identical coronavirus infection patterns, with the number of infected peaking in the sixth week and rapidly subsiding by the eighth week.’ ••• [original article, in Hebrew]

Here's what someone who belongs to the Tom Woods Show Elite wrote yesterday:

“I relinquish any claim on the lives of the young. As an oldster who is presumed to be peculiarly susceptible to the ravages of COVID-19, I will not ask anyone to sacrifice days, weeks or months of their time, love, life, and livelihood on my behalf. It is grotesque for the old to ask the young to sacrifice for them. Go. Live your lives. Enjoy the beautiful spring weather. I have no claim on you for my welfare.” -I agree. -ls

“All fundamental scientific discoveries change the structure of human affairs.” —Richard Rhodes, 2012 — a quotation found at the Payne Institute for Public Policy ••• at Colorado School of Mines

“In the Fertile Crescent, the work of the colonial cartographers—Gertrude Bell, Winston Churchill, and Georges Clemenceau—are in play as they have never been before.” —from the Foreword, by Fuad Ajami and Charles Hill, to Weaver's Lost Art - The Great Unraveling: The Remaking of the Middle East ••• Charles Hill ••• Hoover Institution Press, 2014. Kindle Edition, available on Amazon.

Old maps, held in mind, obscure the shifting of rivers as they respond to forces unknown to careless map keepers and readers.

“Since remote antiquity, statecraft’s great metaphor has been weaving. Traces of cloth found at Fayoum and depictions of weavers at work on the walls of pharaonic Egypt reveal the centrality of weaving to ordered life in the ancient world.”

“Physically-defined universities will slowly give way to cloud-based universities.” ••• Alvin Rabushka, Hoover Institution

“Since 1975, we have grown, saved, and shared heirloom seeds and led a movement to protect biodiversity and preserve heirloom varieties. At the heart of our organization is a seed bank that houses a collection of 20,000+ rare, open-pollinated varieties. With gardeners like you, we can get these seeds where they belong—in gardens and on tables everywhere, for generations to come. When seeds are in our bank, they are protected. When seeds are growing in your garden, they thrive.” —Seed Savers Exchange •••

Explorers Foundation investment in the work of Seed Savers Exchange •••

Compare Seed Savers Exchange ••• to Liberty Fund •••

“Many Americans could die in the coming weeks and months thanks to the FDA’s blockade on coronavirus testing.” ••• James Bovard ••• Mises Institute ••• ~thanks to Lara Ewing Himber

‘Dr. David Kessler, who became FDA commissioner in 1990, quickly sought to intimidate the companies that his agency regulates. A laudatory Washington Post article concluded, "What he cannot accomplish with ordinary regulation, Kessler hopes to accomplish with fear.”

Dr. Kessler declared in 1992: "If members of our society were empowered to make their own decisions…then the whole rationale for the [FDA] would cease to exist." Kessler derided "freedom of choice" as an illusion unless people are presented only with government-approved choices.’

Predicted hospitalizations vs. actual hospitalizations: ‘Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, took a serious look at the IHME (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation) Coronavirus model and called it “garbage.” Davis makes his case through a series of tweets (below). Davis found that the actual numbers of hospitalizations on April 1 were a fraction of the numbers projected by the IHME model.’ ••• ‘Davis writes that if we’re going to shut down the entire nation’s economy to “flatten the curve” based on the projections of a single model, it shouldn’t be too much to ask that the model approximate reality when it comes to hospitalizations.’

Those who thrive on increased control do not like to see fear diminished.

“The looming collapse of the Eurozone” ••• Tuomas Malinen, 2 Apr 2020 ~thanks to Jim Bennett for this link to an article in “reaction.life”, edited by Iain Martin, former editor of The Telegraph

Which is the greater danger: the virus or the response of governments?

Virus: Roundup: Just a few of the disease experts who have criticized the hysterical reaction to COVID-19 ••• Daniel Payne - Assistant Editor. The College Fix, April 1, 2020 — this is a good collection, worth thinking about.

The Tyranny of Metrics ••• Jerry Z. Muller, published by Princeton University Press, 2018

Capitalism vs. Socialism, with Guides: Michael Strong, Carrie-Ann Biondi | Mon, Wed & Fri | April 6th - June 5th | 3:00 PM EST (2:00 PM Central, 12:00 PM Pacific)

“Those who believe that what you cannot quantify does not exist also believe that what you can, does.” —Aaron Haspel

Found on the first page of The Tyranny of Metrics ••• Jerry Z. Muller

“How the obsession with quantifying human performance threatens our schools, medical care, businesses, and government” —publisher

“Serenity” ••• Peter Saint-Andre offers some ideas on how to live well

Anatomy Insights with Jon Zahourek: Classic video clips on timeless topics in anatomy •••

Anatomy in Clay® Learning System •••

Systemic, Proteolytic Enzymes: “Just about everything that makes us sick is either a protein or is protected by a protein and is therefore subject to control by proteolytic enzymes. In this report, we’re going to take a look at exactly what systemic, proteolytic enzymes are, what they do, how they do it, and what the ideal proteolytic formula looks like.” ••• Jon Barron •••

Individuals: Resilience or Vulnerability?

“The most important change in the way individuals are viewed in the 21st century is the shift from a presumption of resilience towards defining individuals by their vulnerability. … Once vulnerability is seen to trump human resilience, people’s ability to deal with adversity can end up being compromised.” -Frank Furedi, “A disaster without precedent: Covid-19 is a huge blow to humanity, but it need not break the human spirit” ••• in Spiked-Online ••• ~thanks to Victor Hill for recommending Furedi’s essay in his article ‘The fallout from the “China Virus”’ •••

Habeas Corpus - “the supreme protection invented by the English people for ordinary individuals against the state”

“You might however consider whether you should not unfold as a background the great privilege of habeas corpus and trial by jury, which are the supreme protection invented by the English people for ordinary individuals against the state. The power of the Executive to cast a man in prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government, whether Nazi or Communist.” —Winston Churchill, In a telegram (November 21, 1942) by Churchill from Cairo, Egypt to Home Secretary Herbert Morrison; cited in In the Highest Degree Odious (1992), Simpson, Clarendon Press, p. 391 ISBN 0198257759 ~thanks to libquotes.com ••• and to Larry Arnn •••

“Coronavirus puts absurdity of inflexible government regulations in sharp relief

Thirty-five states have Certificate of Need laws that limit important health care services” ••• editorial on by Anastasia Boden and Angela Erickson on Fox Business

Two deficiencies of freeorder: 1) excess design restricting emergence of spontaneous order; 2) excess spontaneous order not restricted by the imposition of design. The above describes instances of the first form of defect.

Family fights crony “Competitor’s Veto” law •••

Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government ••• “This seminal treatise in the history of ideas demonstrates what has come to be known as the Higgs thesis: that government grows in periods of crisis, for example, war and depression. He demonstrates this with a detailed look at twentieth century economic history. Higgs's thesis is so compelling that it has become the dominant paradigm for understanding the so-called ratchet effect: government grows during crisis and then retrenches afterwards, but not to the same level as before. This book is absolutely essential for anyone who seeks to understand the dynamics of government growth and the loss of liberty.” ~Mises Institute •••

Contents:

Part I. Framework

▪ 1. The Sources of Big Government: A Critical Survey of Hypotheses

▪ 2. How Much Has the Government Grown? Conventional Measures and an Alternative View

▪ 3. On Ideology as an Analytical Concept in the Study of Political Economy

▪ 4. Crisis, Bigger Government, and Ideological Change: Toward an Understanding of the Ratchet

Part II. History

▪ 5. Crisis Under the Old Regime, 1893-1896

▪ 6. The Progressive Era: A Bridge to Modern Times

▪ 7. The Political Economy of War, 1916-1918

▪ 8. The Great Depression: "An Emergency More Serious than War"

▪ 9. The Political Economy of War, 1940-1945

▪ 10. Crisis and Leviathan: From World War II to the 1980s

▪ 11. Retrospect and Prospect

“Crisis and Leviathan is a blockbuster of a book, one of the most important of the last decade. It is that rare and wondrous combination: scholarly and hard-hitting, lucidly written and libertarian as well.” —Murray N. Rothbard, late S.J. Hall Distinguished Professor of Economics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

“Insightful, compelling, and clear, Higgs breaks new ground in explicating the most important socio-political trend of our time—the growth of American government.” —The Freeman

“Policymakers must approach this pandemic head on, with calm and humility. Calm, because a virus is not the only contagion we face. Panic is its own contagion, one that impairs judgment. Humility, because even when policymakers do not act out of panic, their best laid plans often go awry. … policymakers must first discard laws that are preventing health professionals from responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.” ••• CATO

 The Fatal Conceit, by F. A. Hayek

knowing too much can be more dangerous than knowing too little

Editorial Foreword

Preface

Introduction: Was Socialism a Mistake?

1. Between Instinct and Reason

2. The Origins of Liberty, Property and Justice

3. The Evolution of the Market: Trade and Civilisation

4. The Revolt of Instinct and Reason

5. The Fatal Conceit

6. The Mysterious World of Trade and Money

7. Our Poisoned Language

8. The Extended Order and Population Growth

9. Religion and the Guardians of Tradition

Appendices

Editor's Acknowledgements

Bibliography

Name Index

Subject Index

December 21, 2007; edited/updated November 30, 2017

“That a majority of the electorate is this deeply alienated from the establishment can’t be dismissed as bigotry and ignorance. There are solid and serious grounds for doubting the competence and wisdom of America’s self-proclaimed expert class.” ••• Walter Russell Mead, in WSJ, 25 Mar 20

“There is great public-health damage from both the virus and from mass unemployment and recession.” ••• Wall Street Journal, 25 March 2020

“Liberty in the Midst of a Pandemic” ••• Ari Armstrong, in Complete Colorado ••• a news site worth a visit for many reasons

“Francisco’s Money Speech” ••• Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

Ozone may defeat the Coronavirus (COVID-19) ••• Dr. Robert Jay Rowen

“Conclusion: The world already has a most inexpensive, safe, and likely effective remedy for deadly viral diseases, which exploits their redox vulnerability at critical membrane cysteine sites. Ozone therapy could be easily deployed worldwide. This epidemic could provide a means to study ozone therapy very ethically by treating seriously ill patients, who might otherwise expire, with ozone therapy under the auspices of the institution’s review board. Governments should take notice.”

A longer paper by Rowen on ozone and viruses •••

Dr. Rowen’s message on Facebook, 3 Feb 2020

I take Dr. Rowen seriously, ever since, from a distance, I watched him, in ten days, take a good friend from a “terminal” bone eating disease to full recovery.

A novel approach to defeating viruses, a Venus Flytrap: “bind-encapsulates-destroy” ••• this is not a recommendation to buy stock; it’s a pointer to an idea that may have merit.

Does the harm from the coronavirus panic exceed that of the virus itself? ‘“Flattening The Curve” Just Isn’t Worth It, Dr Fauci’ ••• Anton Wahlman

Time Magazine (2014 cover story): “We Were Wrong About Saturated Fats” •••

This happens over and over - a good reason to get government out of health care, while replacing the good things it does with equal or better solutions emergent from people free to innovate and offer.

Viruses and Economics - Anton Wahlman writes ••• in Seeking Alpha:

Investors now have to ponder the precedent of shutting down the economy of every future virus too. How often? This is the biggest risk of all time.

Is the society-wide cost of the shutdown greater than building more hospitals, without shutting down everything else? I argue that it is not -- by perhaps a factor of 1,000.

What this will do to private property and the sanctity of contracts, is what is making me the most pessimistic about the future of the equity market.

The only way to prevent this for the future, is for political and business leaders to reopen for business and promise to never shut down again for virus reasons.

“Lying in Politics” ••• by Hanna Arendt, published in 1971 by The New York Review of Books •••

Requisite Hierarchy, a concept introduced to me by Bill Casey, of Executive Leadership Group •••, who draws on the work of Elliott Jaques. See “In Praise of Hierarchy” ••• (Harvard Business Review).

Law of Requisite Hierarchy •••, from Cybernetic Laws of Social Progress, p. 115.

Opinions based on beliefs that we find not credible may nonetheless be correct.

Suspicion of authority expressed by people whose beliefs we cannot share may nonetheless be justified.

Attempts to shut down such people in the name of reason must be opposed.

‘Attempts to Increase Bitcoin's Supply Would End Up With Another "Bitcoin”’ •••

Anyone thinking about the U.S. Constitution may find this interesting.

Herland Forest ••• Natural Burial Cemetery - managed by members of the Windward Community ••• As a cooperative community of over 30 years, Windward is dedicated to modeling the practical human-scale technologies and integrated village-scale systems needed to support sustainable rural communities on marginal land.

Stewardship call us to create a lasting home, while connecting with the wider community of life. We recognize that we can only steward what we truly love, and that we can only truly love something that we understand–something that we live with, spend time with and keenly observe, something that inspires us and that we stand beside to protect.

Herland Forest is a community-based, not-for-profit natural burial cemetery and stewardship forest in south-central Washington about 80 miles east of Portland, OR. We’re dedicated to helping people go home by another way.

Herland Forest is managed by  members of the Windward Community. A 501(c)(3) transitional center and sustainability education and research center.

Explorers Foundation investment in the work of Walt Patrick and the Windward Community •••

Note, in email, from Edward Stringham, President, American Institute for Economic Research •••

“Something like a pandemic virus can reveal problems that had previously been unseen. 

“The good news is that this problem will pass in time, but a sound strategy right now, in addition to individual caution, is to free the markets to make the world economy less vulnerable to shocks such as this one. 

“What we absolutely should not do is make matters worse through massive coercive measures that panic investors, spread public hysteria, and prohibit people from making the best possible choices for their lives. The old truth pertains in normal times as well as in crisis times: people in their own lives are better managers than government-employed authoritarians who bear no liability for the cost of their decisions.”

Supply chains, dependence, viruses, exodus from China, article ••• by Madison Gesiotto, in The Hill ••• 11 March 2020

“Just as manufacturers had once moved their factories to China to take advantage of cheap labor, weak regulations, and lower tariffs on exports to developed economies, these companies are now fleeing China for other countries that offer similar business advantages without all of the political baggage from Beijing. The coronavirus outbreak around the world could dramatically accelerate the manufacturing exodus from China, as companies begin to recognize the perils of giving the authoritarian country so much power over their supply chains.”

Bill Bonner, 02 Mar 2020: “What is the appropriate action for a central bank in the event of a pandemic? That is not a question that Powell, Bullard, Trump et al. are going to ask. Because there is only one thing they can do… and it’s completely inappropriate. That’s the charm of the feds… There is no calamity – natural or manmade – that they can’t make worse. All they have to work with is fake money. They either add it. Or take it away. Guess which one they are planning to do now?” —Bill Bonner’s Diary, free subscription through Bonner & Partners •••

Jim Mellon, on a variety to topics •••

“Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson: A great one has passed” ••• by CFACT Ed, February 28th, 2020 — a man to remember.

Jon Barron: “More than Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the New Coronavirus ••• Baseline of Health Foundation” — Jon Barron’s writings on health are excellent.

Rural-Urban Balance: Effect of internet by satellite, SpaceX and Starlink •••

SpaceX/Starlink is leveraging its experience in building rockets and spacecraft to deploy the world's most advanced broadband internet system.

In America 3.0 ••• Bennett & Lotus suggest that this kind of service will completely change the market for real estate all over the world as rural locations become as well served by internet as urban areas: “In this emerging economy, there will be no need for crowding masses of people together …” -pg. 205

Woodson Center ••• 1776 Project, slavery in the United States

“Slavery was a dystopic form of socialism where slaves faced 100% taxation and received compensation only “according to their needs,” as determined by slaveholders. The end of slavery eliminated these horrible disincentives and inefficiencies, and can be viewed as the largest, most successful targeted tax cut in U.S. history. America succeeded despite slavery, not because of it, and only began to hit its stride when slaves were free at last.” ••• ~WSJ, 27Feb20

Our Founding Principles:

• Low-income individuals and neighborhood-based organizations should play a central role in the design and implementation of programs to address the problems of their communities.

• An effective approach to societal problems must be driven by the same principles that function in the market economy, recognizing the importance of competition, entrepreneurship, cost efficiency, and an expectation of return on investment.

• Value-generating and faith-based initiatives are uniquely qualified to address problems of poverty that are related to behavior and life choices.

Erik Voorhees: Within Five Years There Will Be a Major Financial Meltdown and Crypto Will Be Ready •••

“Bitcoin: It may fail but we now know how to do it” ••• Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Jan 2018, on Medium •••

Michael Strong meets creators early in their lives, Ethan (age 5)

“In addition to my three year video series with Alana, now age seven, today I had my first call with Ethan, age five. After he acknowledges that it is weird talking on video like this, we quickly get into his building projects. I ask him what he thinks about, and he thinks about building things. At around 2:58 he acknowledges that he is a "creator." It turns out that he is already drawing pictures of what he wants to build before he builds it. He acknowledges that he was not doing it this way back when he was three. I dig into his creative process a bit and am amazed at how sophisticated he is already. Here I'm getting to know him and his world, how comfortable he is talking about ideas, how aware he is of his own creative process, and feeling out how comfortable he'll be going deeper. Much of this is trust building and a diagnosis of how abstractly he is thinking. I'm observing where he is and how far we can go with respect to exploring his intellectual and creative world in various ways going forward. He is way ahead of most children his age as a self-empowered, self-aware, creator.” ••• ~video, YouTube

Academy of Thought and Industry ••• - “Our program is especially well-suited to young people who are ready to take responsibility for their own learning, and are purpose-driven, entrepreneurial, unconventional, or intellectually curious.” —Michael Strong, founder

Explorers Foundation investment in the work of Michael Strong •••

Columbia University Seminar on Innovation ••• co-chaired by Ronald Gross, author: Socrates' Way, Peak Learning, The Great School Debate; and other books. ~thanks to Ron Gross

“The focus of this Seminar is on the process of change  -- in individuals, organizations, and society.  Its scope includes personal change throughout the lifespan, and organizational change via major institutions including mass media,  business enterprises, libraries, voluntary organizations, cyber-culture, and educational systems, as well as processes ranging from socialization and enculturation, to civic discourse, meaningful conversation, and independent scholarship.”

Explorers Foundation investment in the work of Ron Gross •••

How Major Change Happens

“The normal process of change through political and bureaucratic systems is very gradual and primarily serves the immediate interests of those in the system itself. Real change happens through punctuated equilibria. Certain crucial moments in history arise in which small groups of effective people with proper understandings can entirely recast systems, working usually through ad-hoc entities thrown up outside the regular system but able to steer the direction of events.” ~Jim Bennett

Bill Sardi, contra almost everything we hear about the current virus outbreak.

“Viral Alarm: When Fury Overcomes Fear” An Essay ••• by Xu Zhangrun, Translated and Annotated by Geremie R. Barmé — written by a brave man, and published in Beijing in Chinese in early February 2020 and published in English 10 Feb 2020 by ChinaFile •••

‘First and foremost, the political life of the nation is in a state of collapse and the ethical core of the system has been rendered hollow. The ultimate concern of China’s polity today and that of its highest leader is to preserve at all costs the privileged position of the Communist Party and to maintain ruthlessly its hold on power. “The Broad Masses of People” are nothing more than a taxable unit, a value-bearing cipher in a metrics-based system of social management geared towards stability maintenance. “The People” is a rubric that describes the price everyone has to pay to prop up the existing system. We are funding the countless locusts—large and small—whose continued existence depends on a totalitarian system.’

“Miss Virginia” ••• [trailer] — vouchers

Individual heroism in opposition to established power and indifference. A great movie.

Vouchers for every child’s education would be a step forward, followed by gradual replacement of tax derived funds with voluntarily sourced funds.

Review ••• [The Spool] . Latest stories •••

Moving Picture Institute •••

“The Moving Picture Institute is a modern-media production house and talent incubator that creates and supports high-impact film and video content designed to entertain, inspire, and educate audiences with captivating stories about human freedom.”

“Journalism is suffering from a crisis of its own making” - Sharyl Attkisson, 2015 ••• [YouTube]

Detailed insight into how the relationship between government and media works, and how it has changed for the worse. Attkisson has been a victim of this change. However, her exclusion from main media has created an opportunity for her that she is using well.

Founding Startup Societies: A Step By Step Guide ••• by Mark Frazier and Joseph McKinney

“Based on the authors’ experience in over 50 countries and over 120 projects, it is the most comprehensive guide to building areas of policy reform. 

“The Guidebook covers 20 steps to create a Startup Society, from designing small pilots to running a full-scale city. It also introduces five unique best practices for making Startup Societies: creating consortiums to deliver immediate value, launching competitions to find local partners, leading with gifts for grassroots residents, lifting barriers to investment, and sharing upsides with local communities.”

Mosaic Warfare ••• Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies •••